R Scott

The use case is this:

On a sunny winter day your batteries are charged by noon, all the afternoon’s power is wasted. You can set up the heat battery to only run when the batteries are full (another $50 in parts) and you will have free heat.  Less wood to burn and a backup that keeps your house from freezing while you are gone for a couple days.

How tall are you?  You can build covered walkways with cattle panels or willow just like garden arches but with a little solid cover on top.  The shorter you are, the easier to build.  Use them to grow vines, too.

Wattle and daub or junk fence (look it up here) for the privacy fence, or grow a hedge, or both.

A good rain tight roof takes a minimum of structure and the straighter/square er the easier.  Conventional 2x4 construction is optimized for strength and ease of construction. At least for enough frame to hold a roof. You can wattle the walls or whatever you want. About the only way to get lighter that doesn’t require a lot of time and skill is a greenhouse kit. Those will cost you if you want anything big.

Those are gorgeous.

ZONING. If you have to ask council permission to do any little thing, it becomes a nightmare quickly.  

Glad to see you are using proper insulated chimney. One possible issue I see (not sure, hard to tell from the photos) is your horizontal run inside the tunnel may be a little high—too close to the peak plastic. I would add a metal heat shield between the plastic and that pipe. It can be a scrap of metal siding, just something to block the radiant heat from going directly to the plastic.

Humidity/condensation control is a learning curve. Don’t be afraid to open vents even when it’s cold, it’s better to be cold and dry than cool and wet.  

That is really awesome. I have done some googling because I want inflated roll up side vents on a high tunnel, but have only done inflated hinged doors so far.

They make a ready made bottom pipe for this. It is extruded aluminum, about the same diameter as 2” pvc, and has a greenhouse wiggle wire channel built in. Pricey to ship (12 foot sticks) but if you can find it, it solves a lot of issues.

Most greenhouse doors/vent have huge overlaps on the sides to prevent drafts, some with pockets built to catch the side leaks.  If you made the door a couple feet wider it makes sealing the sides simpler

The stick on zippers available for making temporary doors to keep drywall dust out of the rest of the house during renovation allegedly seal well enough to make a deflation vent.

Greenhouse repair tape is cheap on Amazon. I put it on brand new in places I know will wear. Saves lots of frustration.

Some of the commercial doors have a Roman shade style mid bar reinforcement. Helps with wind, hurts your pillow sealing. Maybe it could be installed only on the inside plastic?

Hindsight and all that….

Ground mount with bifacial panels. They will create enough heat from the backside to melt the snow, usually.

Working with what you have….

I have seen powered sweeps for the panels, I’m sure you could come up with a rope powered version, but you would need nice conditions to get it installed.

What about one of those super long snow rakes like they use on roofs?  

Wow, Paul hit his convenience limit, lol!

Considering how little junk mail we get these days compared to a decade ago, that is pretty impressive to make it this long.

I second the build a shed/garage and live in it.

In the US you can buy ready made sheds that are delivered on a trailer and dropped in place. Or garage kits that can go together in a day.

Yurts look cool, but are not the greatest outside their original climate. No direct personal experience with a true yurt, but have used canvas tents long term. They are okay in dry climates, but are miserable in a rainy season. Better in a cold rain when you can use a wood stove to dry things out but not by much.

Cotton holds moisture and will chill you quickly if you get caught in the wind, but it’s not the life-threatening danger if you just doing chores and have a warm house to retreat to, not like camping or hunting when you can’t just add external heat to solve the problem.

Hillary topped Everest wearing cotton base layers, the weave of the fabric matters more than the material when it comes to warmth and moisture management.

There are different grades of poly just like wool. Finer gauge fibers are more expensive and fragile, but feel better.